Swing to students

Published: 21 May 2010

• A PLANNING loophole is the window of opportunity flung open by developers for a vista of vast profits by getting around social housing laws to build up to an estimated 8,000 student studios in Islington. And these pose a problem of possible voting manipulation, probably unforeseen.

Developers do not have to provide social and affordable flats in a student building. Basic student housing is far more profitable when they can get up to £200 to £300 a week rent per studio. Social and affordable housing is 50 per cent in large blocks of flats and that can take the icing off the cake for a developer.

With two universities, a sixth-form college and an art school, the borough is a magnet for studio building. Students could soon account for nearly a third of those aged 18 to 24 in the borough.

However, students can be registered both in their home and tertiary education constituencies. Where voting is close in a general election, and even more so in small council wards, there is obvious scope for  manipulation, particularly using postal voting.

Double registration checks for this are not mandatory, I understand. I wonder if Islington’s £210,000-a-year chief executive, John Foster, looked into double registration by voters in student residences?

Political parties should have a look at voting patterns in wards where margins may have been close and there is student housing, if they have not already done so.  

LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1